Pennsylvania Turnpike - History

History

The Pennsylvania Turnpike was planned in the 1930s in order to improve transportation across the Appalachian Mountains of central Pennsylvania. The roadway utilized seven tunnels that were bored for the abandoned South Pennsylvania Railroad project in the 1880s. The highway opened on October 1, 1940 between Irwin and Carlisle as the first long-distance limited-access road in the United States. Following its completion, several other toll roads and the Interstate Highway System were built. The highway was extended east to Valley Forge in 1950 and west to the Ohio border in 1951. The tollway was completed to the New Jersey border at the Delaware River in 1954; the Delaware River Bridge opened in 1956. In the 1960s, the entire highway was made four lanes wide by adding a second tube at four of the tunnels and by bypassing the other three. Since then, many other improvements have occurred, such as the addition of new interchanges, the widening of portions of the highway to six lanes, and the reconstruction of the original section. An interchange is planned at I-95 that will fill a gap in that route.

Read more about this topic:  Pennsylvania Turnpike

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
    In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
    Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.
    Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)

    Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.
    —Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)